So, the way I grew up I'm actually shockingly good at deep cleaning

[conuly]

I'm even not bad at decluttering, so long as it's okay to literally throw everything out. (They'll sooner or later send another copy of that late bill, don't worry! And you can always order another birth certificate, probably.)

But I'm not so good at routine maintenance. Does anybody have any already set up daily/weekly/monthly/periodically checklists for various areas of the house that they can recommend?

Comments

[ioplokon]

I use Cheryl Mendelson's timetable/checklist from Home Comforts, adjusted to fit my life (she does waaaaaaaaaaaay too much laundry lmfao)

eta: and then to keep track of the schedule I use the Loop habit app on my phone, which is great because it starts counting again from when you check off the task. So if I am late, everything automatically adjusts out from when I do it.

[watervole]

Laundry?

We've found many tricks to minimise laundry. The simplest one being never to chuck anything in the laundry basket without a sniff first to see if it's actually smelly. Most of the time - especially if it's made from natural fibres - it isn't.

We usually do about one load a week between the two of us. And half of that is bedding.

[ioplokon]

To be fair, Mendelson wrote an entire second book just about laundry, so I don't think minimizing it was one of her goals. I do a hot wash with sheets and towels every week & then a cold wash with darks every 10-14 days.

[watervole]

I don't think minimising was her aim either :)

But mine is. What you do seems very sensible. Most clothes only need a cold wash, and it's a lot cheaper

My other 'laundry' hack is to try and have all my clothes as linen, cotton or wool.

I fell in love with linen when I got into historical re-enactment. It's great for wicking away any sweat/smells.

[calimac]

We're too old and creaky to scrub the floors and the bathroom. So we hire cleaners! They come every two weeks.

[conuly]

A good idea, but not really useful in my particular situation, unfortunately :(

[althea_valara]

Maybe you'd like bitesizedcleaning? There's occasional challenge posts in that community, and I think they'd be happy to host a conversation about routine maintenance.

I have no tips myself, because I really suck at routine maintenance. Wishing you luck that you find something that works for you!

[conuly]

I'm starting to think that I need to find tidier friends, at least so I can ask them this question.

[amado1]

That's a mood. I was very envious of my two tidy friends irl, but when I asked them about their cleaning schedule, I found out that every week, their mom comes to their house and cleans it for them, for free!! What a world.

[conuly]

Jesus, that's embarrassing for them. I wouldn't admit to it.

[movingfinger]

Getting two Eufy vaccums worked for me, the 11s type. They do the floors every day, one up one down, and it is amazing how much less dust etc there is generally if the vacs collect most of the loose cat hair etc. They have limitations, of course, they don't do behind doors and they can't get into crevices or under some things, but having them has noticeably improved my life. Automating my least favorite task means it's done.

You live in a city with much more dust and pollution, and when I did, weekly dusting was necessary, it just was, the grime appeared everywhere. Doing it weekly kept it better under control.

For the kitchen, ants are a frequent invader here, so keeping the counters clean and uncluttered helps with that, and keeping the cat food area clean too. That's, like, daily or more, as needed.

[conuly]

We do have a (not) roomba.

[pauamma]

I set up my own list from scratch, based on what felt reasonable to me and the layout of my apartment. If you're interested or curious, I can try exporting my task list to my laptop and comment with the housekeeping parts of it if successful.

I use Regularly on my phone to remind me. Being me, I use prime numbers (or numbers relatively prime with 7) as intervals so things don't repeat in the same order or on the same day of the week.

[conuly]

I am both interested and curious! And also *fascinated* by the way all my friends are very autistic, which I already knew but....

[pauamma]

Scrub dishdrying rack: every 23 days
Sweep and mop kitchen floor: every 19 days
Sweep and mop bathroom and toilet floor: every 19 days
Wipe breakfast and pantry tables: every 31 days
Laundry: every 10 days
Sweep under furniture: every 55 days
Wash shower stall and bathroom walls: every 57 days
Wash toilet bowl: every 13 days
Sweep bedroom and entrance: every 11 days
Scrub kitchen sink: every 29 days

[the_siobhan]

I'm not so great at it myself. I set myself a goal of concentrating on one specific room for a week and just... puttering. I won't say that keeps things ~clean~ but I mostly manage to keep up with the worst of it that way.

[conuly]

Well, that's not nothing.

[hudebnik]

When I was in grad school, I rented a room in a house with a couple, one of whom (the landlady) expected every room to be dusted and vacuumed weekly. And no shoes inside the house. I thought it was kinda extreme, but things weren't covered with thick layers of dust, as they are in our current house. And (also unlike our current house) there wasn't a lot of unused clutter piled up, because we had to pick it up every week to dust it.

No, we don't have a workable schedule of regular cleaning. We pick up dust-rhinoceri of dog-hair whenever we notice them, and change the dining-room tablecloth with the seasons (which forces us to get everything off the table at least that often), and scrub the tub or the toilet or the shower-curtain when we notice that they're not white.

[conuly]

I thought weekly dusting was the norm for people who clean?

[hudebnik]

Who are these "people who clean"? Other than my former landlady?

[conuly]

Clearly none of my friends, but some people do it regularly.

[griffen]

For this, I can't do better than the Sidetracked Sisters. Go look up their books (Pam Young and Peggy Jones) - they're great at how to handle routine maintenance. I recommend their first book just because it's funny, and their subsequent book because they refine their system and make it a lot more streamlined.

https://www.amazon.com/Sidetracked-Home-Executives-TM-Paradise/dp/B002YNS0U8

https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Act-Together-Get-Organized/dp/0060969911/

[conuly]

Thanks :)

[wenchpixie]

For routine maintainence https://www.unfuckyourhabitat.com/ literally changed my life (she started out on Tumblr back in the day, but the website has all the useful things). I know some people don't get on with her, but if you do, and you're looking to get a routine that works for you (rather than all the trad wife terrifying bs nonsense that's all over the internet), then she might very well be what you're looking for.

[conuly]

Thanks - and yes, thank you for dodging tradwifes. (Tradwives?)

[fred_mouse]

I'm just going to share the washing set up, because it might be useful as an example, and it is the one I can articulate. We don't have a dryer, and we have an outside wash line, mostly under cover, that holds 2 loads of the largest volume domestic machine we could get (10kg). We are a household of four adults, but Youngest generates nearly the same amount of clothing as the rest, as they have work and training clothes that have to be washed every time, while I wear the same trousers to work for a week, barring accidents.

We have allocated a specific wash task to six of the days of the week: underwear, kids bedding, parents bedding, lights, darks, towels. these are written on post-it notes on the laundry door, so we can reference if needed. Bedding are done on separate days because neither the line nor the machine can handle both at once; we fill the load up with whatever. These are not prescriptive, these are the back up options if we can't do the decision making. It is facilitated by having a (home built) four bag wash sorter that does delicates (washed whenever we are caught up on another category, which happens), underwear, lights, darks. Towels and bedding should never be in the laundry long enough to need a place that isn't 'in the machine'.

This has the flow on effect that the kids change their sheets on Sunday, because they know the wash day is Monday; likewise our bed gets changed on Tuesday. Towels (including kitchen towels and cleaning cloths) get changed on Friday.

There are some additional wrinkles on this, in that the first towel load of the month contains the towels that get used 1-2 days a week and the bathmats.

I personally find the 'first weekend of the month' approach to lower frequency tasks, because then they are Done for the month; last weekend of the month is stressful.

This came about because I'm not a one and done person, and multiple loads on a day are not doable.